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7 who left their mark in early 20th century Houston


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ALFRED C. FINN, MAURICE J. SULLIVAN, WILLIAM WARD WATKIN, JOSEPH FINGER, JOHN F. STAUB, & KENNETH FRANZHEIM

They were all born between 1883 and 1892 and all are interred in Houston.  It's hard not to admire all they contributed to Houston in the first half of the 20th century.  Anyone know if there are any writings, books, documentaries, etc. on their works, lives, etc.  I sure would enjoy this or something similar.

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For Watkin:

https://www.amazon.com/William-Ward-Watkin-Rice-Institute/dp/0884150127

https://www.amazon.com/Brochure-Work-Ward-Watkin-Architect/dp/B075DBRZJ5

 

This is the standard reference on Staub:

https://www.amazon.com/Architecture-John-F-Staub-Houston/dp/0292740123

And this one is specific to Staub's country houses:

https://www.amazon.com/Country-Houses-Staub-Lindsey-Humanities/dp/1585445959

 

The Watkin books and the first Staub book are out of print, but used copies can be found relatively easily, and they should be also available at university or public libraries (or via interlibrary loan).  The Watkin brochure used to be available in its entirety as a PDF in Rice's Digital Scholarship Archive, but the link is dead now - they appear to be retooling the Archive as the Rice Research Repository, so perhaps things are being moved around. Might be worth contacting someone at the Woodson Research Center and asking about it:

https://digitalprojects.rice.edu/wrc/watkin/exhibits/show/watkin/item/1338

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23 hours ago, mkultra25 said:

The Watkin books and the first Staub book are out of print, but used copies can be found relatively easily, and they should be also available at university or public libraries (or via interlibrary loan).  The Watkin brochure used to be available in its entirety as a PDF in Rice's Digital Scholarship Archive, but the link is dead now - they appear to be retooling the Archive as the Rice Research Repository, so perhaps things are being moved around. Might be worth contacting someone at the Woodson Research Center and asking about it:

https://digitalprojects.rice.edu/wrc/watkin/exhibits/show/watkin/item/1338

Found it:

https://digitalcollections.rice.edu/Documents/Detail/brochure-of-the-work-of-wm-ward-watkin-architect/328910?item=328965

Looks like the Woodson's collections are available at https://digitalcollections.rice.edu/ now, but be forewarned the search engine is s-l-o-w. Hopefully this gets fixed as part of the upgrade process, as I never had any performance issues with the old Digital Scholarship Archive.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 10/23/2023 at 7:12 PM, EspersonBuildings said:

ALFRED C. FINN, MAURICE J. SULLIVAN, WILLIAM WARD WATKIN, JOSEPH FINGER, JOHN F. STAUB, & KENNETH FRANZHEIM

Such an awesome architect line up!

For the same time period, I would also add Wyatt C. Hedrick.

A bit earlier in time, I would add Eugene T. Heiner. He had such cool designs!

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Excellent two more to add (and also interred in Houston).  Had no idea Heiner was responsible for The Cotton Exchange Building, awesome structure!  And I just realized my blunder in the thread title, I only listed 6 but titled it 7! 🙄🤔😵  Was trying to figure out why earlier today I could only remember 6 of the 7. 😆

Edited by EspersonBuildings
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